LeiriaCon gaming - Part 3

Let's do another batch of impressions 😉 - maybe some of these are more negative, but to be fair these are games we didn't get before because we weren't sure about them, so we were kind of prepared they wouldn't quite hit the mark.

🏰 Middle Ages

I'm not sure about this one. 🤔 We played 2p and you'd definitely need more for some of the effects. The game is mainly a Kingdomino-esque drafting, as you add tiles to your board, activating its special action and collecting money. It's very light and with 2 it was definitely not worthwhile.

🏛️ Khora: Rise of an Empire

I was always in love with the looks of this game, but the gameplay seemed a bit unexciting. Unfortunately it was as expected, just moving on tracks and playing 2 out of 7 actions for 9 turns. What seals it all as a sub-par game, is an arbitrary dice 🎲 roll system for the action selection, where rolling low is always bad for you. ☹️ So ultimately dice will decide your game, which ruins what otherwise could have been a cool light civ-builder.

⛲ Babylon

This game is a master of table presence, at least the 3D hanging gardens you are building look superb. 🤩 Unfortunately gameplay is a bit too monotonous. 😐 Getting tiles and the columns to place them isn't exciting, which is the majority of the game. Otherwise there is a lot of pattern matching and verticality to the construction which could be engaging for some. And it seems hard to master.

👑 Lusiadas 

Ok, this is an exception as we saw this card drafting and set collection game here for the first time. As we learned, it’s about the most important work of Portuguese-language literature that celebrates the bravery of the Lusiads (Lusíadas), using Vasco da Gama’s journey to India as a pretext. It's pretty simple with fun illustrations and an interesting way of drafting. 🙃 We enjoyed it, but I just wish it had a tiny bit more to make it really great.

I'm still happy we got to play and experience these games, so now I don't have to wonder whether we need them. There are often gems that you can find this way.